It’s an exciting time for the county, city of Springfield, and the SMEAA board in general. Today we are launching what I call operation ‘Save Downtown Springfield’. This is more than expanding the BOS Center, it is about investing in our capital city, revitalizing downtown, and creating new economic opportunities for our entire region. This effort has brought people together including Governor Pritzker, mayor Misty Buscher, the Sangamon County Board and other community leaders. The SMEAA board, organized labor, and our business community all recognize the importance of moving this project forward.
Springfield is the capital of Illinois, but our convention facilities and downtown hotel capacity no longer allow us to compete at the level of a state capitol should. The message is simple, when conventions leave Springfield, Springfield’s dollars leave with them. This is not a theoretical problem. We have identified at least seventeen convention organizations or bookings that Springfield has lost over these years. Ten were lost because of hotel instability. The list includes Illinois Funeral Directors, Illinois Health Care Association, Illinois Education Association, Midwest Truckers, Skills USA, the VFW, and several major education and professional organizations. The most concerning, we are losing large annual conventions that have called BOS Center home for more than a decade.
The Masonic Grand Lodge, Illinois Principals Association, Administrators and Illinois FFA represent long-standing relationships and thousands of visitors. We’re not losing these conventions because people do not want to come to Springfield, we are losing them because Springfield does not have the facilities to keep them here. When conventions leave, we lose hotel stays, restaurant customers, retail spending, local jobs and tax revenue.
The Illinois FFA State Convention will move to Peoria the of beginning in 2028 after more than two decades in Springfield because it has outgrown the existing facilities. That should be a wake-up call. Springfield cannot continue sending conventions and its economic opportunities to other cities.
Operation ‘Save Downtown Springfield’ gives us a plan to reverse this trend by expanding the BOS Center. We can retain the conventions we have, win back lost business, and compete through larger state, regional, and national events. This project has a support of organized labor because it will create good paying construction jobs and long-term opportunities. It has the support of the business community because more visitors meet more customers for our hotels, our restaurants, shops, and all of our local businesses. This project must be built on reliable numbers, responsible financing, and strong public accountability. But doing nothing also has a cost, and we pay that price every time another convention chooses another city.
The choice is clear. We can invest in Springfield’s future, or we can keep watching the future check into hotels and convention centers somewhere else. Springfield is the capital of Illinois. It’s time for our convention facilities in downtown to reflect that important role. Operation ‘Save Downtown Springfield’ starts today.
Let’s stop exporting Springfield’s opportunities and start bringing Illinois business back to Illinois’ capital city.